The problem is that there has been a huge amount of time and effort building up the personal threads. Starting that over, not sure I'll bother. Just look for another forum. If the personal threads can be moved there then some are there, some are not, etc. Gets crazy. If they were to move the entire subforum under breakroom it would work but then that isn't hugely where it belongs and if that could have happened would it not have been a better option than the deleting?

I would still ask the moderators to respect what the members have made the forum. If an entire subsection has been against the rules, if the entire community pretty much has been made up of breaking that rule, perhaps the rule needs to change? This is a question not in any way a demand.

I am sorry Ben, but Holy !?!!!!!!!?!?!?!??!?!??!!!!?!??!?!??!?! Where'd everyone's Threads go?!? I just discovered that section only recently, and only had time to go through a few MEMBER'S THREADS there!

As an enforcer of rules for over 15 years, I understand the proper way to enforce. The deletion of that whole MEMBER'S section is something called, MASS PUNISHMENT.Which in my State is illegal.

Example: The last unit I worked in I was alone on the MP Floor with about 47 perps, and they were placed in cubicles. There were five cubicles in my unit. No doors, it was an open floor, cubicles separated by walls.

Now, if a few perps in one of those cubes were talking apples while the other perps were all talking oranges, and there were no complaints from any other cubicle...HOW is it that I am gonna go and enforce a complete lock down of my unit, and justify it was for the rule of, "Good government of the facility" or even a breaking of the "House Rules" because I noticed a few perps in a cube were talking about apples while the rest were talking about oranges?!?

Said perps were talking about apples in THEIR assigned space.

It's 0617hrs here...I gotta try to get some rest. However I think I will be spending a ton of time brushing my teeth and gargling because this whole deletion of the MEMBER'S SECTION left a bad taste in my mouth. Really bad.
I mean, that was just UP...

The problem is that there has been a huge amount of time and effort building up the personal threads. Starting that over, not sure I'll bother. Just look for another forum. If the personal threads can be moved there then some are there, some are not, etc. Gets crazy. If they were to move the entire subforum under breakroom it would work but then that isn't hugely where it belongs and if that could have happened would it not have been a better option than the deleting?

I would still ask the moderators to respect what the members have made the forum. If an entire subsection has been against the rules, if the entire community pretty much has been made up of breaking that rule, perhaps the rule needs to change? This is a question not in any way a demand.

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I have to second this post. A huge amount of time and effort has been spent in building up the personal threads. And, as a whole, that is evidenced by the amount of posts in those threads and the number of likes each has received. Our thread has only been active a couple of months, and we've been overwhelmed by the outpouring of kindness, support, and "likes" that we've received so far. I realize it's not a popularity contest or a way to boost your post and like count. And I don't think anyone here sees it that way. It's just a way for us to share our EDC, our interests, and a little bit of ourselves with like-minded individuals. If the chatter should be in the Breakroom, then I agree with Ben, and others, who have suggested those threads be moved to the Breakroom as a sub-forum. I'd hate to all of those awesome threads fall into a black hole to never be revisited.

I am sorry Ben, but Holy !?!!!!!!!?!?!?!??!?!??!!!!?!??!?!??!?! Where'd everyone's Threads go?!? I just discovered that section only recently, and only had time to go through a few MEMBER'S THREADS there!

Staff Member

As per scríbhneoir's post here, the statement below is the official EDCF policy regarding thread content.

None of the forums or sub-forums are to be chat rooms or personal blogs.

From the beginning, this privately owned forum was about the gear, giving folks a place to discuss their interests in a friendly and respectful manner. It still is. And people forged relationships through their posting responses to others' comments about their gear. It was not sterile. It was not stilted, but it respected the individual's thread and stayed on topic. If the comments drifted, staff stepped in and reminded folks with a "Back on topic" please. And it was good.

As the forum grew (and continues to grow) at a pretty dang fast clip, not every incidence of off-topic posting was identified and nipped in the bud (one of the reasons we have the report button so that members can let us know when something is amiss or awry), and members sensed that it was okay to carry on conversations within a thread. Because it was allowed, some members took it to the extreme, somehow making it legitimate. It isn't.

The Breakroom is an off-topic area of EDCF, intended to provide a place for non-EDC topical discussions and findings. For example, you smoke cigars? What kind? Have some good news to share? Super! Let us congratulate you. Want to host a givaway? Cool. Those are break room topics, not politics, not religion, etc. Nearly any topic that conforms to the family-friendly expectations and rule structure of EDCF is fine, but no, personal threads, where people can carry on conversations about whatever, are not allowed.

From the rules: "The Breakroom is not intended to be anyone's personal blog, a chat room, a vehicle to inflate post count, or a forum for a personal agenda in any venue. Threads deemed as such will be locked or removed."

We allowed a few of the threads like "Three good things that happened today" types where members are allowed to post some random things that allowed a short response. They, too, got out of hand. And we had to really rein in the giveaway threads because it became a time-intensive nightmare to eliminate the posts that were not entries.

What happens is that everyone jumps on the posting wagon, and when someone who comes looking for info on gear clicks on the "What's New" button, he/she finds a bazillion posts on stuff that has nothing to do with EDC. It gets annoying, and folks who visit for the gear lose interest and leave, too. They may not post a lot, and they may not be the most vocal, but they come to see what folks recommend or are modifying and find those types of posts are buried beneath the back-and-forth chat threads. They click on a page to view someone's edc setup for the day, and find ten pages of conversation that have nothing to do with what the person is carrying for the day.

What we want to do is to keep the other EDC threads topic specific so that someone who is interested in knowing what others carry or think of an EDC item or create doesn't have to scroll through posts that don't contribute to the thread, however fun and friendly those comments might be. It can be tedious and distracting. Community is still forged by respecting a thread's intent, and the rules have always been there; by joining, each member agrees to abide by those rules, which includes abiding by staff policy and decision. From the rules: If any member has questions or concerns about a staff decision or action, they should address them by messaging (private conversation/PC) a staff member, and not discuss, debate or question in the open-forum. Doing so is disruptive and itself a rule violation.

We encourage members to help maintain the forum’s integrity by using the “Report” function when inappropriate content or rule violations are seen.

I have been using web forums for a long time. In general, the most successful forums I've seen have made it possible to forge personal relationships. EDCF has done that to an extreme thus far. The outpouring of support and heartfelt friendship here has been amazing, and that's why I spend so much time here. This change, clarification, crack-down, or whatever you want to call it may have a strong impact on the nature of the forum. If it changes, it may no longer be the right place for some members. That's okay.

There is something going on here that we're not being told. The staff does not change the way they operate just because they are bored. There's a reason for all of this, and we do not have the right to demand it. Just keep that in mind.

I totally understand the reasoning behind the crackdown, however, I believe the chatter is glue that has bound us together. We're all here because of our common interests in gear, etc, but have found that we have much more in common, and have grown, as close as one can get on the internet, close. I feel this is my extended family and interested in what is going on in their lives, much more than the gear. If I find that I have to hunt around for different threads or keep up with PM's then my interest and patients will disappear. I usually don't participate in much chatter, but that doesn't mean I don't enjoy it. I'm just a visitor here and will abide by the rules, however, I may find myself visiting other parts of the internet more frequently. That's my 2 cents.

There is something going on here that we're not being told. The staff does not change the way they operate just because they are bored. There's a reason for all of this.

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True, but from what I've seen going on the past couple of weeks (just because I wasn't logged on
doesn't mean I wasn't here) it almost looks like one particular member decided he didn't like the way
things were and decided to kick everybody else's sandcastles down out of spite.

True, but from what I've seen going on the past couple of weeks it almost looks like one particular member decided he didn't like the way things were and decided to kick everybody else's sandcastles down out of spite.

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Ya, no poop. The ironic thing is people- who should know better- still go to that person's thread and Like posts instead of shunning him like the pariah he is (or should be).